There are so many things I envy about Rory Gilmore from her shiny hair to her hometown of Stars Hollow, but nothing makes me more envious than her back-to-back summer vacations in Europe. If that's not living the dream, I don't know what is. While Rory's Gilmore Girls Season 5 trip with Emily was taken under less-than-ideal circumstances — Rory was barely talking to Lorelai, and Emily was separated from Richard — it still looked like a pretty sweet vacation. Just like Emily and Lorelai were as different as day and night in many ways, so too were their vacation styles. Rory's experiences with her grandmother and mother could not have been less similar if they had each taken her to a different planet.

When Lorelai whisked Rory away as a high school graduation present, they saw Europe the way locals would. They traveled on trains and buses, stayed in hostels, and hung out in pubs. Emily's trip was far more structured and it was all about luxury and sightseeing. Rory ended up getting the best of both worlds, which you will see in the nifty Venn Diagram below, but both of her trips did have a couple of special things in common.